Everlasting Tuck
by tazzydan
Summary: Anna is called to look after her Nan who is dying. At 100 years old, her alzheimer's disease is worsening and some strange tales are cropping up about some people she knew in her youth. Nan then goes on to ask for some odd last requests. 2 bottles of what


_**Everlasting Tuck**_

_**Chapter One :**_

'_For some, time passes slowly, an hour can seem an eternity…for others, there's never enough...for Jesse Tuck, it didn't exist…'_

_**In Loving Memory**_

_**Winifred Foster Jackson**_

_**Dear Wife – Dear Mother**_

_**1899-1999**_

'_Tuck said it to Winnie the summer she turned 15. Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live. And she did…'_

Jesse knelt before the headstone, his eyes swimming in tears. His heart was pounding around his ears and he couldn't focus. He took a long breath of fresh air, before looking to the heavens and sighing.

"Good girl." He muttered. Jesse knew, deep down, that Winnie had done the right thing. She had been brave enough to resist an everlasting life and continue to live on her own path, like a normal person should. Jesse just didn't know how he could move on. For years, he had been missing Winnie, counting down the time until he could be with her again. For once, time had had an effect on him. It had kept him and the young woman he loved apart for so long. Jesse stood up, hearing a rustle in the bushes behind him.

"Whose there?" Jesse called out into the shrub. A loud grunt could be heard and suddenly, his brother, Miles, appeared, stumbling out from a thorn bush.

"Ouch!" He muttered as he held up his hand to examine where the thorns had torn his skin. He watched the skin heal over before his eyes and shrugged, turning to face his brother. Jesse rolled his eyes.

"Miles, you're enough to give a man a heart attack." He exclaimed. Miles grinned and then, seeing what lay beyond where Jesse was standing, his face went pale.

Jesse sighed and ran his hand through his hair. Miles offered a gentle smile and patted Jesse on the back.

"She did the right thing, Jesse. One hundred years is a long and prosperous life. You shouldn't be sad for her. I know it is hard not to be." Miles trailed off and Jesse let a silent tear run down his cheek.

"I don't even have a picture. All I have is memories and they're fading by the day. I just wish I had something solid to remember her by so I know it wasn't all just a wonderful dream." Jesse fell to his knees and Miles rushed to his side to comfort his only brother. Suddenly, Miles broke into a grin.

"You know what…I think I have an idea."

"Your grandmother's condition is worsening, I'm afraid." The doctor told Anna as they stood in the hallway watching her sleep, fitfully. "There are ways to prolong the inevitable, but at her age…well…it is up to you. After all, you are her next of kin." Anna bit her lip. She knew her grandmother was fading fast. Even the difference between today and yesterday was astounding. This morning she had been talking about all of these names of people whom Anna did not know. In her confusion and concern, she had called the doctor out to their home. He had merely told her that this was one of the final stages of Alzheimer's disease. Pretty soon, she would not even recognize her own face, let alone her granddaughter's. Anna shook her head.

"You're right. I think we should just let nature take its course now. I think she is ready." Anna felt stabbing pains of guilt for having not contacted her grandmother for the longest time. Her own mother, after a string of failed relationships, had died of a drug overdose when she was only 6 and her grandmother had been her only living relative. So, Anna had been sent to Tree Gap, Illinois, to live in her grandmother's childhood home. Now, at the age of 42, after over 20 years without contact, she had returned to care for her grandmother as her age finally got the best of her.

The doctor nodded in agreement and left the house and Anna to her thoughts. It seemed like only yesterday when she had argued with her grandmother and run away to marry the man whom she had thought, at the time, to be the love of her life. They had divorced two years later and Anna had been too proud to contact her grandmother again. A few months previous, she had received a phone call saying that her grandmother had had a fall in her home and was to have a series of operations on her broken hip. The anesthetic had caused some complications and now, here she was, waiting for 'the inevitable' to happen to the woman she had tried so hard over the last 20 years to despise.

Anna boiled the kettle to make herself some tea and sat at the tiny kitchen table, her face resting in her hands. Suddenly, she heard a bang from her grandmother's bedroom and she ran down the hallway and burst into the room. Her grandmother was sitting up in her bed, trying to reach for her nightstand.

"Oh, Anna, could you please help me up for a moment?" She asked politely. Anna shook her head.

"Sorry Nan, you know you're not supposed to be putting any weight on those legs of yours. Was there something you needed that I could get for you?" Anna asked, somewhat relieved that her grandmother was rather lucid for the moment. Her Nan nodded.

"Do you see that table, by the window?" She asked, pointing across the room. "There is a brick in the wall underneath it that is slightly darker than the others." Anna sighed. '_So much for lucid.'_ She bent over to look under the table and was surprised to find her Nan was right. "Pull it out and behind it is a book. I want you to bring it to me. I wish to read." Sure enough, again, her Nan was right and Anna pulled out a rather dusty, yellowed, leather-bound journal. "Thank you, Anna."

Anna passed her the journal and was about to ask her about it when her grandmother cut her off.

"I wish to be left alone while I read." Anna's eyes grew wide in surprise at her bluntness, but she left without a word. She went into the lounge room, next door to her Nan's room, turned on the television and promptly fell asleep on the couch.

It was the middle of the night when Anna awoke. She stood and turned the television off with the remote. It was then that she heard the murmurs.

"Jesse…of course I love you…oh to be the toad and live forever…Celina, where are the bottles…the fire, it is everywhere…" Anna paused to listen. She shook her head sadly. She knew only briefly what her grandmother's childhood had been like. Her mother, May, had not told her much at all and it was only when Anna was sent to live with her Nan, she learnt about the fire and what had happened to her Nan's parents and her maid, Celina.

When her Nan had been just 16, her parents, being very well off, had taken her around the world with them. Her father and mother being kept busy with business along the way had organized for a young maid to go with them to accompany her Nan when they couldn't. Her name was Celina, a young African-American woman of 23. While on holiday in Africa while on their trip, a huge fire had broken out. Her Nan's parents and her maid, Celina could not get out in time, and had perished in the flames. Her Nan had then been sent to live with an Uncle until she became of age. As soon as she had turned 18, her Aunt and Uncle had had her married off to a neighbor of theirs, Scott Jackson. He was extremely abusive toward her, drank profusely and spent a lot of his time gambling at the local pub. At 25, she gave birth to Anna's mother, May. Her husband, Scott was just as abusive towards their daughter and soon after May had turned 15, he died of a heart attack. And so began May's life of alcoholism, petty crime and prostitution.

Anna stepped quietly into her Nan's bedroom, where she could be seen sleeping in the center of the room. Anna pulled a chair over so she could sit right next to her Nan and hold her hand.

"I have to drink the water to be with Jesse…Celina has some…I have some…No, I need to save the water…My water and Celina's water…" Anna listened, perplexed. She had no idea who this Jesse character was. Celina was her maid from when she was young, so she assumed Jesse must be real too. Anna watched the heart monitor bleeping away next to her sleeping grandmother's form. The lines zooming up and down with each muttering that came out of her Nan's mouth.

Suddenly, she fell silent. Anna panicked and checked to make sure she was still breathing. She sighed with relief. Anna stepped back from the bed, running her hands through her hair. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of something under the bed. It was the journal that her Nan had asked her to get for her earlier. Anna picked it up and left the room silently. Sitting herself in her original position in the lounge room, Anna began to read.

_September 13__th__, 1914_

_Mother is being downright horrible. I was going to go for a walk today and visit the cottage. It feels as if I must prove to myself that the happenings in the wood were real. For now, it feels like nothing more than the most wonderful dream. Surely, I must have invented them all by myself for such a loving family cannot exist in the same world as mine. Father was going to let me go for a short walk, if I was back in time to get some piano practice done before High Tea. Mother stopped him. It just isn't fair! Part of me wants to drink from the spring just to spite them both! But I know that I mustn't, for I have not decided yet what to do and I may regret it later. I plan to collect a sample of the water as soon as I can, so that I may carry it with me always, just in case. If only, oh, if only mother and father would let me see the woods just one last time. If only they would let me feel close to Jesse this one last time…_

_Yours sincerely,_

_Winnie Foster (Who most dearly wishes to become a Tuck)_

Anna gasped. _This must be the Jesse that Nan keeps talking about._ Looking at the date of the diary entry, Anna realized that it must have been written shortly before her parents took her away around the world. That also meant that it was around a year before they died and her life was changed forever. Anna yawned and realized the time. _I'll read some more in the morning, if I can. _She popped the book down under the bed where it had been when she found it and put herself to bed.

"Nan, you're up early." Anna said cheerfully as she entered the room carrying a breakfast tray. Her Grandmother was sitting up in her bed, smiling at her.

"I've been looking for my old journal. I fell asleep with it last night and now I can't find it." She smiled bashfully. Anna smiled back at her.

"Not to worry, I can see it from here." She bent down and picked it up, pausing to look at the old fashioned cover.

"I started that journal when I was 15 years old. It is fun to look back and read what I was thinking at that age." Nan said, taking the book from Anna and stroking it lovingly. Anna sat down on the bed beside her Nan.

"Nan, I heard you talking in your sleep last night." Anna said suddenly, before she could stop herself. Surprisingly, she chuckled.

"Did I say anything humorous?" Nan asked with a grin. Anna smiled, but shook her head.

"You were having a bad dream about the fire I think. You mentioned Celina." Her Nan grimaced slightly at the name.

"I am sorry you had to hear that, Anna dear. It must have scared you somewhat." Anna shook her head again.

"It didn't scare me, Nan." Anna paused, wondering how to proceed. "But something you said did interest me." Her Nan set down her glass of orange juice on the tray and looked at Anna expectantly. "You were talking about a man. His name was Jesse." Her Nan looked away from Anna, towards the window. When Anna looked closely, she noticed tears rolling down her face. Anna pursed her lips in concern. "Who was he Nan?" Nan turned to look her in the eye, still crying. She bit her lip before replying.

"I think it's time I told you something that happened to me a very long time ago. A story about the man I love."


End file.
